[1] The cheese has a moist medium firm texture and its flavour is described as having “the freshness of the misty Dales and wild bracken, with the sweet caramel undertone of ewes’ milk”.

Milk from farms in Swaledale is collected and, in the first stage of the cheesemaking process, heated to 28 °C (82 °F) with microbiological culture.

It is then cut up again, drained and the resulting cubes stacked up, before the blocks are broken up and then put into moulds lined with muslin.

Their techniques were passed on to local farmers in Swaledale who continued to produce cheese, although the monks left during the dissolution of the monasteries.

These cheeses' high moisture content and open texture allowed them to blue easily when they were matured in damp conditions.